


Crack In My Chassis

by flannelfeelings



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Brothers, Fluffy ending kind of, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, I dont rlly know what this is i just am so emotional abt dean, Implied Castiel/Dean Winchester, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Sad Dean, Sadness, mentions of sad past, this is not fucking wincest but if u want to read it as such no one is stopping u
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2018-04-02 19:30:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4071934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flannelfeelings/pseuds/flannelfeelings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean finally gets a moment to reflect on his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crack In My Chassis

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly have no idea what this is I'm JUST SO EMOTIONAL ABT DEAN AND SAM AND THEIR LIVES AND THEY DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER KM S O SORRY

Dean remembers it all.

The grizzly orange flames engulfing his home, the frantic shouts of his father's voice, the sudden weight of his baby brother pressing into his chest. The unspoken understanding that passed between Dean and his dad. Take care of Sammy.

Suddenly, all at once, Dean became Mary. Because Mary was gone. Dean kept expecting to see his mommy burst through that first motel door. Smiling and shining radiant as she always did. Cutting the crust off his sandwiches, stroking his hair to soothe him, shouting at him when he didn't clean his room.

But the door never swung to reveal Dean's mother. It opened and closed on a million broken dreams.

At the funeral, Dean held Sammy. It seemed as though he was doing a lot of that lately. Sam cried halfway through and John took him away. Dean didn't cry though. Dean never cried. And before Dean could even spell his own name, it was _he_  who was cutting the crust, stroking the hair, and reprimanding laziness. It was he who carted his father into bed after the long nights, soothed the broken whimpers that escaped his father's throat, followed by the loud moans of his baby brother. His dad begged him to shut the baby up.

And Dean did what he could. When Sammy turned four, Dean told him to make his own breakfast. Sam cried for a half hour because he couldn't figure it out. Dean found himself frowning in surprise and confusion. Why the hell couldn't Sam make his own eggs?

And then John's boots came thudding into the room and his thundering voice echoed, "Dean what're you thinking? He's a kid, he can't make his own breakfast."

Dean stared at his father with a mixture of puzzlement and utter disbelief....Dean had been making a whole family breakfast for four years.

As Dean grew older, entered middle school, his father took him on his first hunt. Dean was twelve, freckled and buck-toothed and scrawny. His father was over six feet of thick muscles and strength that radiated out of him like a beacon of light. Dean wanted to be like him. Dean wanted to glow the way his father did. He got hurt. A scrape on his knee and a broken nose. But he'd done his job.

"Good Dean," his father had said, wiping the blood away with a crinkled up tissue, "you did your job."

Dean didn't feel a glow, but he certainly felt a spark of light break through his dampened soul.

Sammy's first hunt was different. He was eleven, Dean was sixteen. More experienced. He knew as he aged that the light he saw in his father would never be the same for Dean. He knew then that he was good for one thing and one thing only: the job. Dean jumped in front of Sam and stopped him from getting hurt, breaking his own arm in the process. John took care of the werewolf and told Dean to get up and bring Sam back to the car while he dealt with the body.

Sam had asked, "why did you do that Dean?"

"You were gonna get hurt Sammy."

"So what? You get hurt all the time."

"No!" Dean had growled, grabbing Sam's face in his good hand. He hadn't remembered squeezing Sammy's cheeks so hard, but there were red marks when he pulled away, "you're never getting hurt Sammy. Not as long as you got me."

Sam had looked up at Dean, blinked slowly and said in a soft whisper, "what makes it okay for you to get hurt?"

Dean's jaw had clenched hard, eyes setting, "You got a chance Sammy. Me? I'm no good for anything but this. You..you're different."

"Why can't you be too?" Sam growled, "why do you want to be like him so badly!?"

"You don't understand Sam-"

"I do! You think he's some kinda hero! Dean he isn't! That-that power you see in him isn't real. It's fear and carelessness. You don't want to be like him Dean! You're better than that."

Dean had clutched his broken arm against his chest and replied, "get in the car Sam."

Things changed when Sammy left for college. Dean cried every night for two months after he left. He gripped his cheap motel pillows and buried his face into the fabric, grateful that John was in a room over. He'd always known it would come, and he wouldn't have it any other way, but he hadn't ever realized how much it would hurt. The empty, bare feeling that left his heart all dried up and useless. Who would take care of Sam while he was away? Would Dean ever see him again? Would he really spend the rest of his life hunting with dad while Sam became a lawyer?

He threw himself into the job even more so than before. But the lives he saved never seemed to fill the hole that his little brothers absence created. And then he fell in love. He loved fast and he loved zealously. Cassie made every dark thing around him slightly brighter. The glow in his father dimmed and Dean saw a new type of light. This glow was warm and supple, tender in a way that John could not be. With her, Dean realized that people are lit up in different ways. And the way Dean loved his father wasn't the kind of love he craved.

After things with Cassie ended, Dean was left with a half healed hole in his chest, a recently discovered need for affection, and absolutely no one. His father was getting closer to finding the demon that killed mom, but he made Dean sit this one out.

After three days with no contact, Dean began to panic. He called, texted, emailed, probably would've fucking faxed if he'd seen it as helpful. It was when he got really desperate that he went to Sam. He and John both had been keeping loose tabs on the kid, making sure he stayed out of trouble.

He looked different. Taller, stockier, healthier...happier. It didn't feel right intruding on his life here with Jess, but Dean couldn't do it himself. He needed his brother. He knew how pathetic and clingy and codependent it was, but Dean couldn't do this on his own. He needed Sammy back by his side. And maybe once they found dad...well Dean didn't know what he expected.

When he pulled Sammy out of the second fire, Dean knew he'd ruined Sam's life. All Sammy wanted to do was live a life Dean and John could never have. And stealing that from him, weighs on Dean's shoulders every second of every day until he finally dies for good. 

John's death cracked Dean's half filled heart back open and he was empty again. But this time, he had Sam. Of all Dean's fucked up endeavors and misguided attempts at doing the right thing, he's at least sickly relieved he was selfish enough to get Sammy from Stanford.

Which is why they end up here, as they always do. The hunt had gone well, per usual. Evil defeated, innocence saved, and two battle-worn brothers with another kill on their consciences. For some reason, he's been thinking about the past lately. Things have been relatively quiet as far as Winchester mellow drama goes, leaving him with some time for his thoughts.

He's been thinking about Castiel too. The perplexing, infuriating, loyal, beautiful Castiel. Every time Dean looks at Castiel, he's rewarded with the same shimmering glow that he once saw in his father. Only better; Cas' glow is untarnished, pure in ways that John could never achieve. Cas has killed thousands -albeit, they were almost always bad guys- but his glow is still celestial and clear with goodness.

Cas makes Dean feel safe, like his father, or Bobby, or even Sam never could. Dean is fucked up and demented in incomprehensible ways. The ever constant internal screaming of " _protect_ _Sammy_!", the voice in his head that tells him he's worthless shit and causes nothing but destruction, the crushing weight of his past choking him and dragging him closer to the edge.

But, when he's with Cas, all of this disappears. All he can feel is the warm him of Castiel's glow, his glistening, unmarred glimmer. Dean's soul lifts just enough for a genuine smile to embrace him, by even the mention of his angel.

"Dean?" Sam inquires gruffly, eyeing his bloodied brother nervously, "you alright?"

Dean wipes some vamp juice from his forehead, "yeah Sammy. Just thinking."

"Thinking what?"

He sighs softly, running his shaky fingers through his fine hair, "we've been through hell and back- literally, and all we've got to show for it are two broken spirits and worn out bodies."

Sam glances self consciously at his still physically peaked 30 year old body, "worn out? Speak for yourself."

"Oh shaddup Sammy," the older Winchester rolls his eyes, feeling a small smile grace his expression, "I just feel...sort of hollow."

Sam hesitates before replying, "maybe it's time you started looking for something more. You're almost forty Dean," he glances around them at the mess of bodies piled high, "maybe you- maybe we are finally ready to move on. No strings attached."

In his mind, Dean replays every memorable situation he's ever encountered in life. All of them, except his short tryst with the lovely Rhonda Hurley, have centered around tragedy.

"I just...I don't know who I am without the fear Sammy.I don't know how to just...exist."

Sam leans over and rests a heavy hand on his brother's shoulder, "then we'll figure it out. Together Dean."

Dean drops his machete, hearing the wet thump as it hits the dead vamp nearest him. He wipes his hands on his jeans, his father's words replaying in his head " _look_ _out_   _for Sammy_."

Dean looks up at his baby brother, eyes harrowed with countless misery and tribulation. The upward crease of his brow that once hinted at positivity, now sinks down into a desolate line of hopelessness. His skin, marred with battle scars that prove the trials he's overcome. He stands tall, but broken down, as a warrior, as a human, as Dean's little brother.

And immediately, Dean realizes that he's never really taken care of Sam. Because if he had, he'd be looking at a completely different person. He would be looking at a lawyer with a beautiful wife and wonderful rugrats and a renewed happiness in his eyes. Someone who doesn't wake up screaming in the night, someone who wouldn't have to forget his past, someone who could truly be alive.

"I'm sorry Sammy," Dean whispers, finally letting the silky tears soak his cheeks, "Sam I'm so sorry for not keeping my promise. For getting you hurt and hurt and hurt over and over."

Sam pulls Dean under his arm, "Dean, you need to know, that even if I could've known- if I could've seen every aspect of our future, everything we've been through in the past ten years..." he licks his lips and stares at Dean seriously, "then I'd always choose to go with you when you got me from Stanford."

A loud sob chokes its way out of Dean's throat, and Sam tucks him a little tighter against his chest, "maybe Cas will play a role in our quest to normalcy. Especially for you."

Dean looks up at his brother, liquidy eyes wide with confusion.

Sam just smiled that slightly broken, yet endearing smile that tells Dean he knows what he's talking about, "come on big brother. Why don't you let me take care of you from now on?"


End file.
